This picture's existence is completely our fault. Less than a week after a college student posted a photo of her posing with "Blurred Lines" singer Robin Thicke's hand hovering suspiciously near her rear at a VMA after-party, Thicke and his wife of eight years Paula Patton are on a "we're still in love, we promise" tour. Get ready for photos upon photos of PDA, America. This is the reality we asked for.
Case and point: Thicke and Patton got cuddly on the red carpet... before a line of photographers... in front of a step-and-repeat... at his album release party in New York on Wednesday night. They were not "caught" kissing. This isn't a mistake. We forced them to do this when a rogue tweet from a concerned fan to Patton pointed out a below-the-belt hover-hand in the now-famous picture.
We'd probably all prefer for this obnoxious display to cool down, but when Lana Scolaro, the 20-year-old in the photo with Thicke, spread the word to media outlets claiming that she made out with the singer while his wife was nearby, we gobbled it up. Who are we to resist a scandal like this? This is celebrity gossip gold. But with great appetite comes great consequences, and our consequences include public tongue gymnastics and cutesy tweets about how happy the whole family is.
If the apparently unfazed couple went into seclusion, stepped out separately, or were photographed not mauling each other or gazing deeply into each other's eyes, wouldn't it serve as more evidence of their impending implosion at the hands of a woman with camera phone and some big claims? The answer is absolutely, it would.
They're stuck in a tough spot: they're on the road to divorce if they don't drown each other in PDA and they're called out for being too much if they do smooch in public. Overenthusiastic affection in plain sight is actually the best option they've got: if they can't kill the infidelity rumors, they can certainly do their best to write a new, louder narrative over it. It's just unfortunate for them that the narrative they're stuck with is going to meet with quite a bit of grunting disapproval, but at least they've got each other, right?
